MARIJUANA SOWS MONEY, TRAGEDY IN APPALACHIA

High Unemployment, Low Wages Help Create Climate For Illegal Crop

EAST BERNSTADT, Ky. - Bob O'Neill stands on a secluded hillside in Daniel
Boone National Forest. In the palm of one hand, the forestry officer holds a
dozen marijuana seedlings that could have grown to have a street value of
$24,000.

Here in these rugged hills, known more for their destitution than their
beauty, more than 40 percent of the nation's marijuana is grown - an
estimated 1.6 million outdoor plants worth $3.9 billion annually in a region
where the average household income has yet to break $8,000 a year.

"With marijuana growing, nothing surprises you - who's growing it and who's
selling it," said Knott County Sheriff Wheeler Jacobs.

Jacobs has arrested friends and acquaintances caught growing the plants
illegally and has faced the backlash from struggling mountain communities
where the drug money has become a financial lifeline.

Richard R. Clayton, a University of Kentucky professor who wrote a report
for the United Nations, "Marijuana in the 'Third World': Appalachia, USA,"
says the region is the perfect drug-growing economic model.

"You've got that large level of unemployment, you've got insularity and
you've got a need for cash," he said.

While the rest of the nation prospered amid record economic growth, the
region's endemic poverty, lack of high-paying jobs and ideal growing climate
feeds the illegal industry. Appalachia's rugged terrain also provides a
natural camouflage for the marijuana plants - each with a street value of
about $2,000.

"It's tremendously profitable," said Joseph L. Famularo, U.S. attorney for
the eastern district of Kentucky. "Kentucky marijuana is very prized,
especially in the Northeast United States."

In 1998, the 65-county region was designated a High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The
designation means $6 million annually in federal funding is used to help
law-enforcement agencies fight the problem. Since then, 1,952 arrests have
been made, and 5,703 marijuana plots have been eradicated.

Some say the problem is a social one - that the offspring of moonshiners
have traded in their bootleg liquor sales for a more profitable product.

The industry crosses social strata; Harold Sizemore, supervisory law
enforcement officer for the U.S. Forest Service, has arrested engineers and
retired teachers for growing marijuana.

"You've got some that are fairly organized like corporations," Clayton said.
"And you've got some that are just mom and pop organizations."

Mike Roution, who turned to growing when his pay check from Pizza Hut
couldn't support his cocaine habit, is nearing the end of a five-year prison
sentence for growing 185 plants in his Taylor County attic. He was netting
$165,000 every three months.

His wife, a Head Start teacher, filed for divorce while he was behind bars.
He has a 13-year-old daughter.

"I was one of the people who would've told you that marijuana is the best
drug in the world. ... Now I know the adverse effects of it," he said in an
interview from the Kentucky State Reformatory in LaGrange.

The thriving cottage industry has also spawned corruption among officials.

Freddie White, the drug-dog handler for the Perry County sheriff's office,
pleaded guilty in February to possession with the intent to distribute
marijuana, as well as other drug charges. Johnny Mann, former Lee County
sheriff, is serving a 24-year federal sentence for a 1991 conviction for
accepting bribes to protect marijuana and cocaine smuggling.

Law enforcement officers also acknowledge that the millions of dollars
generated by illegal marijuana sales are bolstering legitimate businesses.

In 1990, after 100,000 plants were eradicated in Leslie County, stories of
grocery stores and car dealerships nearly going bankrupt were widespread ,
Sizemore said.

Public lands are popular places to plant marijuana patches. By planting on
government property, growers avoid forfeiture and make it more difficult for
authorities to track the grower. In Boone National Forest, 192,685 plants
worth $384 million were eradicated last year.

Roution said marijuana growers often carry firearms, plant animal traps and
steal each other's crops.

In 1994, three eastern Kentucky men were killed by their own booby traps at
a marijuana patch in Breathitt County. The explosion left 3-foot-deep
craters.

"The repercussions of it, the tragedy and all the stuff that goes with the
drug trade, it's by no means romantic or glamorous. It's a nasty, rotten
business," Famularo said.